


Untitled Jay & Elle Fic

by Camwoodstock



Category: Puyo Puyo (Video Games)
Genre: April Fools' Day, Comedy, Gen, Hilarity Ensues, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Puyo Puyo Pals Secret Santa 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24415594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camwoodstock/pseuds/Camwoodstock
Summary: It's Stardate 4-01 on the Starship Tetra, and you two are terrible siblings. Jay & Elle pull pranks on the only day that's allowed, and there are no survivors (at least, in regards to dignity).(A fanfic written for Discord user Marxsoul, via the Puyo Puyo Pals Discord's Secret Santa 2019 event)
Kudos: 21





	Untitled Jay & Elle Fic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marxsoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marxsoul/gifts).



"O, what day is it?" Tee said groggily, having just woken up. The answer, naturally, came in a series of adorable little "Pi"s, but what the answer truly was, was made abundantly clear.

"Stardate 4-01? ...oh no."

Ever since their run-in with Earth, the crew of the Starship Tetra was made more than aware of the customs among the people there. These were all celebrated, mostly for fun, but also to remember the friends they made. However, one of them was only fun for two people; Stardate 4-01, or as it was called on Earth, "April Fools Day".

This wouldn't be an issue, except, as was made very clear to everyone who has ever met the Tetra crew, Jay & Elle were two very chaotic siblings who loved pranks. Always running around together causing mayhem, be it petty or severe, and anyone who had to put up with the shenanigans would soon never forget their names. Of course, they never meant actual harm, but it'd certainly be a bit of a nuisance all the same.

Add to that, a get-out-of-jail-free card that was an entire free DAY to pull pranks on anybody unsuspecting, and you had a recipe for disaster. Forget navigation beyond any autopilot-determined safe routing, because today is going to be one of those days, like it or not--or rather, be Jay & Elle, or be someone else.

Tee groggily accepted this, mentally bracing himself for the inevitable first prank of the day, and opened the door from his on-ship bedroom into the bathroom, just ready to take a shower... Only to find the door was slightly ajar and held a bucket full of water atop it. In an instant, he was splashed with cold water, causing him to shiver. In the distance, he heard the distinct laughter of Jay & Elle, hearing some quick footsteps away from his location.

And all Tee could muster, was a shaky, yet sincere, "Here we go, I suppose."

...

Rummaging through old drawers and closets, grabbing all sorts of old knick-knacks to jimmy-rig into pranks. Strings, tape, plastic bugs that you'd probably find in a dollar store, and buckets. Many, many buckets. Probably more than a starship would ever be reasonably expected to have, at that. It was still early in the morning, all things considered, and everyone was asleep except for Tee; and Jay & Elle were more than willing to capitalize on a chance to catch everyone off-guard.

"Ooh, idea, idea!" Jay enthusiastially whispered to her sister, Elle. "Ooh, what? What?" Elle responded, trying not to snicker as she pondered the idea. "Tee's probably going for breakfast soon... We should totally booby-trap the kitchen!"

"Ooh! Yes! Yes!" The two said practically in unison, scattering around for all sorts of materials to craft pranks and booby traps. Along the way, Jay made sure to set up all sorts of smaller pranks along the main lobby of the Starship Tetra--whoopee cushions on the seats, fake plastic bugs in shoes, and most deviously, shifting all the furniture ever so slightly, practically dooming the muscle memory of everyone! (THE HORROR!!)

...

"Pipi! Pipipi!" A sound that is rather expected on the Tetra early in the morning, all things considered; means Tee asked O to manage the coffee machine while he was busy with something else; namely, taking a shower. Besides that, though, the kitchen was more or less untouched... but, uh, it certainly wasn't going to stay that way once Jay & Elle started barreling through the place.

"Aww, O's here!" Jay muttered to himself, taking this as a bad omen (er, O-men). "I doubt we'll get away with ANYTHING as long as he's here! Elle thought to herself, before chiming in with "What if we just, convince him with something?"

"Ooh, like what?" Jay immediately chimed in. "Well, we gotta be nice to him..." Elle leaned in and began to whisper "Because we're gonna use him to prank Tee, instead of pranking him directly!"

Jay and Elle basically chanted in synchrony. "Oh! Oh!" O was confused, assuming those Ohs were lacking an H, and was evidently blissfully unaware of the situation at hand. "Pipi? Pipi?" Jay & Elle immediately rushed over, using their playful demeanor to their advantage. "Heyyy, O! We got a question for you!"

"Pi? Pipipipi?" O, being the cinnamon roll that he is, clearly didn't know what was going on, and wanted to know what it was. Almost in unison, Jay and Elle continued, "Can we send a message through that log thingy? Please?" O was a bit unsure, letting out a very continuous "Piiii..." as he pondered to himself. Clearly, it'd take some convincing...

"If you let us, we can clean up the kitchen for youuu!" And just like that, O perked up. "Pipi! Pipipipi! Pi." Seems that offer was enough to make O content with sending a message; after all, he never did enjoy kitchen duties--Zed always did them much better, he felt. "Pipi, pipipi pipi, pipipi?"

Jay and Elle whispered to each other. "Oooh, what should we say?", asked Jay. "Improvised nonsense!", replied Elle. "Maybe a big ol' fib?", proposed Jay. The two whispered in unison, "No... Both! Yeah! Yeah!!" Jay nodded, and whispered to Elle. "Ooh, let's do it together!"

"Ahem... Captain's Log, Stardate... 03-32. Nothing doesn't not be bad today, it's normal! Met no more than 7 space fish... One was THIIIS BIG! Entered the chess dimension, that was not good! Fortunately escaped using pudding and a green artifact from the cat planet! Over!"

O was more than eager to send the message, not entirely aware of the nonsense it contained. "Pipipipipi! Pipipi!" Jay and Elle high-fived one another, saying in unison, "Great one!". Then Jay spoke to O, saying "We'll be cleaning up the kitchen now!"

...Except, little did O know, they were doing the exact opposite. Well, not the exact, that'd be dirtying it up, and they were just setting up pranks but--oh, forget it, you know what I meant. The kitchen's safety was "compromised", but instead of any ordinary breach... It was going to be the most petty, comical booby-trapping seen on the Tetra.

...

"Did... did someone hijack the transmitter?" Ex couldn't believe what he was reading with today's captain's log. Was that even the captain?

...

Tee groggily made his way to the kitchen, still waking up. He clearly didn't get much sleep, staying up the night before; hopefully his morning coffee would help him finally be able to comprehend what's going on. Besides, O was watching the coffee machine--clearly, Jay & Elle couldn't rig up the kitchen with O protecting it. Right? ...Right?

Well, one trip and near-fall due to clear tape being strung along ankle height of the doorwar into the kitchen, and that was all it took to tell Tee that, nope; clearly, O was either easily convinced or something, because the kitchen seemed to be rigged up with all sorts of pranks.

Tee yawned, still too tired to really actively think about these pranks. Unfortunately, a tired person slinking across the kitchen happens to be one of the most susceptible people to pranks; a lesson that Tee learned, forgot, and was about to learn once again when opening the cupboard revealed it was stuffed full of plastic toy spiders, which all came flooding onto him!

"EEEEP!" Tee squealed, initially not even realizing these were toys before it dawned on him. "Oh. Right." He sighed, and spoke to O. "O, can you finish prepping the coffee?" A few adorable "Pi"s later, and O was about to start doing that.

Tee thought. "Ehh, might as well get something to eat." He opened the fridge, looking at what was within it; lo and behold, that was rigged too; the standard lights had been replaced with flashy disco ones, and more bizarrely, it begun playing music straight out of the 70s.

"What the...?" At that point, Tee was less afraid and more utterly baffled. How the heck did Jay & Elle possibly rig THAT one up? In such short notice? Were they awake at 2AM rigging up these pranks? Tee cut himself off, saying aloud, "Okay, stop thinking about that, just grab some milk for the coffee."

And, lo and behold, the carton of milk had googly eyes on it. In fact, everything in the fridge had googly eyes on it. With unmatching sizes for some items, just to drive home the idea. All stuck firmly onto everything and glue was sticking these plastic eyeballs onto everything. They could be picked off with force, but Tee wasn't going to bother with that one yet; just grab the carton of milk and if he's going to have food, it'll probably be from somewhere else.

Just as he grabbed the milk carton and headed for the coffee, he eyed a fruit basket--he didn't recall getting that out yet, but who was he to complain? He grabbed an apple from it, bit into it... and realized just a tiny bit too late he just walked face-first into another prank, because the apple was a hollow plastic toy replica. "How did I fall for THAT one?!" Tee muttered, as he put it someplace actually suitable.

He set the carton beside the coffee maker, and thought to himself, "I should PROBABLY get anything from the pantry first before, y'know, grabbing my coffee." So Tee decided to walk to the pantry, in search of not-googly eyed, not-plastic food... And the pantry door was slightly ajar, with a bucket of cold water atop it, which fell right on top of Tee, splashing him and giving him shivers. Tee could only muster "...How did I fall for that TWICE?"

...

Finally getting his coffee (and recovering from a brief bout of feeling like he was out on a cold December evening due to a wayward container of water), Tee decided to go to the living room of the Tetra, hoping at least he could relax a bit. Now, granted--with Jay & Elle on a pranking spree, this would just be impossible--but hopefully, HOPEFULLY, there'd be at least some semblance of calm as he sat down to drink his morning coffee.

Tee sat down on the couch next to a coffee table, just ready... when an all-too-familiar juvenile sound played. Quick check, yep, there was a whoopee cushion. You'd think at this point he'd think about that, but apparently no. Whatever the case, Tee quickly moved it aside, sat back down, and... heard it again. "What the?" Turning over the cushions of the couch revealed that there was a second whoopee cushion, hidden right underneath the actual cushion. As backup. Backup for a whoopee cushion.

"Just how prepared are you two...?" Tee said, to no one in particular, not expecting a reply. "Two who?" A bit surprised, Tee jumped and turned around, only to see it was just Ai, happily having himself some tea--seemed he wasn't exactly aware of what was going on. "Captain, I can assure you things are alright... Probably."

"Um, you might wanna think again on that--" Tee said, before Ai put a hand on Tee's shoulder. "C'mon, it's not like Jay and Elle have been running around... wait... that's exactly what they've been doing, isn't it?" Tee sighed and nodded. "Yup. And it seems they've really had it out for me." Ai whimpered a bit, his ears lowering, but he maintained his calm demeanor. "Oh, well... That would be a call for concern, but it won't be THAT bad, surely. Not like they'd pull something right now--"

And before Ai could finish his statement, a little toy bone was thrown just above the two of them, making Tee flinch and sending Ai into an obligatory fit, and just about launching Ai's tea into the sky! "Shouldnothavesaidthat! YIP! YIP! YIP!!" Tee was instinctively trying to shield himself, but reached out a hand to grab onto Ai's tea so it wouldn't make a splash all over the floor. "Uhh, about that one, Ai!"

Ai was whimpering to himself, curled up on the seat beside Tee. Tee just looked at Ai, and gently pat his side. "Uhh, I think you're good. Listen, let's have tea, alright?" Ai nodded. "...If you insist, captain." Ai sat down properly, and thought. "Hmm... Should we turn on the TV?" Tee thought. "I dunno... Based on what else Jay and Elle have boobytrapped, I'm sure they'd pull SOMETHING."

"Captain, I severely doubt they managed to hijack nearby broadcast satellites." Ai chuckled a bit, recognizing Tee is... probably irrationally paranoid at this point. Tee nodded. "You're right, uh, lemme get the remote..." Tee set his coffee down, got up, and headed to the TV stand where the remote was, when--"OWWW!" Tee yelped in response to a very minor, but still incredibly aggravating pain. It turns out that someone had nudged the coffee table ever so slightly, and made it a prime toe-stubbing hazard. Jay could be heard laughing from an entirely different room at THAT one; pretty much a dead giveaway who was responsible for setting up that one.

Tee muttered to himself a bit, carefully traversing the room so as to not trip himself up anymore than he did the first time, and got the remote. He opted to retrace his steps a bit faster than normal, keeping in mind the coffee table was shifted, and--"AIEEE!" Tee screamed once more, this time stubbing his toe on the couch. "The couch, too?!" Ai couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that sight, taking a particularly delicate sip of his tea. "No offense, captain, but I think you walked into that one."

Tee sighed. "That, would be funny if it wasn't painful." Ai smiled a bit. "Oh, you'll be alright. Besides, I'm sure Zed knows how to take care of this stuff--he pretty much has every furniture's position coordinates down pat, if anything, this'll be more a struggle for him than for us!" Tee took a drink of his coffee. "I mean, sure..."

Ai was just about done with his coffee, when Tee heard footsteps. "Umm..." They seemed to intensify, and Tee turned behind him, and... lo and behold, there they were. "Ai, look out--!"

And before Ai could react, Jay slapped a pretty little Christmas bow onto his head, and Elle sprung along and tossed some festive paper onto Ai! "Merry Christmas!!", the two shouted in unison. Ai was completely paralyzed in "fear", not exactly in a state of mind to recognize a bow and wrapping paper are not the strongest of restraints, as he started yipping like a mad dog (teehee!). "YIP! YIP! YIPYIP!"

Tee flinched, both scared and confused by this one. "But it isn't even Christmas! What gives?!" Jay thought, and then smiled. "Well... Happy Birthday!!" Elle laughed, and continued. "I know puppies are always a great present no matter WHAt time of year!" Ai was, well gone from rationally partaking in this conversation; he began to paw at his head to get the bow off him, and shake the wrapping paper off himself, whimpering like a puppy.

"Ai isn't a gift when we already have him, though...!" He said, prying the bow off Ai's head. Ai quickly let out a "Thanks, Captain!" before trying to shake off the wrapping paper. Elle piped in with a "Well, maybe you lost him, and we're gifting him back!" Tee was too baffled at this point to respond, and rolled his eyes. Jay seemed disappointed by this, pouting. "Aww, c'mon! We even wrapped him up and everything!"

Tee sighed a bit. "Well, you did do that much... Listen, you go do something else, okay?" Jay and Elle immediately piped up. "Ooh! Sure thing!" And the two of them immediately bolted off. Tee sighed, finally taking the paper off Ai. "...Why do I feel I just redirected a glitter letter bomb to someone else?"

Ai got up, still a bit shaky. "I'll, uh, against my better judgement, get to work on some ship components and upgrades. I've had a few plans in mind." He began to walk off, humming a bit to himself, though being very careful... Though he yipped briefly at the presence of a plastic spider right on the doorknob of his work room.

...

A bit of time had passed since the kerfluffle early in the morning, and besides the occasional stubbing of toes, it seems things had died down at least a bit, but the air of "is that booby-trapped" never quite left people. Realistically, Jay and Elle could be ANYWHERE--and they could be readying for anything!

Whatever the case, Ess was content to have lunch at the time, especially with her papa, Zed. It was a mini-tea party of sorts, her chairs set up all fancy, a pretty tablecloth, some nice colors, and of course, only the fanciest tea and teacups! ...of course, Zed couldn't actually drink tea, so Ess supplied him with some fuel he runs on, which was still in its own little teacup.

"It sure is nice today, huh, Papa?" Ess said cheerily, with a grin on her face. "Y'know, Tee keeps going on that today's going to be all full of tricks and traps, but with you, Papa, I'm sure it'll be fine!" Zed simply replied "I am, quite flattered you say that. I've been extra alert today, I'll have you know! Only the best for you."

Unfortunately for them, Jay and Elle were about ready to do exactly as Tee advised them; go do something else. Well, unfortunately for Ess and Zed; for all intents and purposes, this was a RIPE chance for Jay and Elle to pull their trademark goofs and gaffes! And they had a plan, this time.

"Okay, let's not just go wild, okay, Jay?" Elle whispered to her brother. "Ooh! Like, we do a coordinated prank on each one dedicated to them?" The two of them had a small pause before immediately nodding to one another, whispering an enthusiastic "Yes!" The two of them schemed a little bit more, and before you could say "hello", they had a plan entirely cooked up for those two!

First on the agenda--Zed had to be pranked first, he was too on-guard, so pranking Ess would be impossible otherwise. The two pondered and pondered, how would they be able to prank or otherwise confuse Zed? Jay had an idea on how to explicitly confuse Ess, but no idea on Zed; Elle, on the other hand, had the PERFECT idea to baffle Zed sufficiently.

"What if we made him think of a paradoxical statement? It'd drive him nuts! And bolts, for that matter, hehe!" And with that one statement, Jay immediately said "YES! But how?" Elle replied, "Well, Ess usually leaves stuff lying around for entertainment during those parties... Maybe we could trick him with trivia cards?"

Jay thought for a bit. "That might just be crazy enough to work... And hey, that's never failed us before!" Elle immediately pulled out an index card, and started to scribble down on it, "What's 42 ÷ 0?" Jay huffed, shaking his head. "Oh, that's too easy for him to weasel out of! Every robot and their dad he countermeasures against that!" Elle asked, "Well, what do you have in mind?" And just like that, Jay had written down on a new index card, "Does this question not have an answer?"

Elle nearly cackled at the sight. "Oh my goodness! That's just about the best question like that I've heard! Zed will have to prep himself, cuz it'll rock his socks off!" Jay quipped, "doesn't he lack socks?", to which Elle only mustered a confused look as to why her brother would be asking such a thing.

"Pipi! Pipipi pi!" In the distance, O seemed to be calling. Zed quickly got up. "Pardon, dear... O is calling for my assistance." Ess got up as well. "Sure thing, Papa! I was about to get up and get some cupcakes out of the pantry, so this works. It isn't a tea party without something sweet!" Zed laughed, and the two left the room for a bit... Ripe for some rigging by Jay and Elle.

Quickly, Jay scrambled to find some trivia cards laying around--if it existed, it was on the Tetra in some capacity--and found them quite easily. Hastily shuffling in the index card, they set it to be rigged to appear slightly early on. Besides that, they swapped the two drinks (Zed's fuel is entirely organic and consumable by humans, relax!), slightly nudged the table (an even BIGGER horror to the muscle memory!!), and swapped the sugar cubes and milk jug (THE BIGGEST HORROR YET!!!). After all that, they scampered back into hiding.

"So, wait--what do we do to Ess?" Jay asked, recognizing they lacked such a plan still. In hindsight, that probably should've also been devised before the two sprang into action. A bit of thought went on before the two of them said, in unison, "ambush?", and it was clear what had to be done; when Ess reacted to Zed reacting to his prank, that was the time to rush for her with an ambush! But with what?

"She did say she was getting stone pastries... Why don't we get her a pie?" Elle piped up, gleefully. Jay winked, laughing, "Ooh, I got you! Lemme go get that!" And Jay snuck on over to the pantry, making extra sure to be quiet so nobody would hear him. Elle, meanwhile, kept her watch, waiting for when the two might return.

Eventually, after what was realistically only a few minutes, but what felt like forever, Jay returned with a pie hidden from view, and not too long after, Ess and Zed returned to the table. Ess sat down easily, but Zed had to go around the table... and barely grazed by the moved table, almost comically springing away from it as he recognized just a moment too soon that the table had been nudged. "I detect something's afoot!"

"What do you mean, Papa?" Ess said to him. "Well, I get the feeling Jay and Elle were over here... I am uncertain as to their current whereabouts, but it's best to be on guard." Ess nodded, and grabbed "her" teacup. "Makes sense, Papa!" She took a sip, and was met with a mouth full of organic, edible--but VERY decidedly not-delicious--fuel. To say she nearly spat right then and there was an understatement; in that moment of realization, Ess practically looked like a fish out of water, holding some in its cheeks! Zed immediately began to panic, rushing to Ess' side. "Ess!! Are you okay? Do you need recovery? Do you copy?"

Ess rushed over to the nearest sink to actually be able to spit out the decidedly-unsavory-but-technically-edible fuel in a location that was decidedly more optimal than "all over Papa, the table, tablecloth, all the food, and probably on the carpet as well", and basically tried to dry off her entire mouth with a towel as she slowly walked back to where Zed is.

"Euh... Physically, yes, I am fine, Papa; but, err, jury's out on the mentally part." Zed let out a sigh (well, a robot sigh) of relief. "Well, I can only assume Jay and Elle happened to swap our drinks, too... Good you drank first, my fuel is just disgusting and not harmful, but I doubt tea would play very well with my circuitry."

"Heh, yeah, Papa." Ess sighed a bit in relief, laughing a bit as Zed's comment. Swapping the drinks back, Ess went to grab the jug of milk to pour in her tea. "I'll probably need extra milk to wash that off, though." ...and she grabbed at least 3 sugar cubes. Thankfully, it turned out that Ess was able to actually catch herself mid-act on this one, as she immediately set it back down and grabbed the milk jug properly.

Zed was baffled at this one. "They... Swapped the jug and sugar cubes?" Ess laughed. "I mean, hey, they did more crazy things--I think we should be thankful it isn't anything more weird!" Clearly, Ess wasn't aware she was tempting fate, or at the very least, tempting Jay and Elle. Same-difference in this situation, really, let's just be real there.

The two had their tea party for a bit longer, Zed finishing his fuel first. He decided to look around the table a bit for something extra to do. "Hmm, what are these doing here?" He grabbed the trivia cards, clearly unaware of their origin. "Oh, those? I don't know how those got there." Ess was just as confused as Zed was. "Could've fooled me. Want me to try some?"

Ess nodded. "Sure, go for it!" Zed read out the first card. "Hmm, let's see... I run, it runs, I stop, it runs, what it it? ...I believe there was a misprint on this one." Ess laughed, before thinking. "Is this a riddle? This sounds more like a riddle thing." Zed nodded. "Seems to be that way." Ess thought a bit more, before saying "Jay and Elle after we catch them in the middle of a prank?" Zed laughed, before shaking his head. "Funny, but it seems that is not the intended answer. The back of the card says... My watch." Ess was baffled. "My watch?! That's such a weird trivia-riddle-thing!" Zed laughed a bit. "I can certainly agree on that front."

Zed thought. "Say, do you want to read the next one?" Ess picked up the next trivia card in order--unbeknownst to the two of them, Jay and Elle's index card was the very next one, a fact that got the two of them on guard immediately. Ess read out, "What's 42 ÷ 0?", and without a second passing, Zed just bluntly said "Undefined." Ess giggled at that. "Jeez, Papa! I knew you didn't take those questions too lightly, but I didn't expect that one!"

"Say, you read the next one!" Ess said, and Zed obliged, picking up the index card... Which read "Does this question not have an answer?"

Immediately, Zed paused for a bit. He wasn't broken--he obviously had failsafes present to prevent logic from causing him to go mad, but those failsafes tended to resort to the "just halt the entire thing" method of error handling. Zed started to shake a bit, clearly trying to figure out SOME sort of answer to this question; if it has no answer, that's a yes, but yes is an answer! But if it has an answer, that's a no, but that is ALSO is an answer! How can it have an answer, and yet have no answer? If 1 + 1 = x, and x =/= 2, what is x? If--at this point, Zed was well beyond baffled and visibly smoking a bit; not out of any blunt damage, but because he was stressing a bit.

Ess was very confused, and even more concerned. "What the--what's wrong, Papa?!" She rushed over to see the card. "Does this question... What does that...? How did THIS get in?" Ess pondered a bit before the answer was about to make itself known, right on cue--Jay and Elle sprung into the room, and Jay slammed the pie right into Ess' face, like they were right out of a slapstick cartoon! Ess immediately squealed in reaction, "JAYYY! ELLEEE! YOU MEANIES!!"

And Jay and Elle immediately bolted for it, leaving laughter in their trail, and a very confused O headed to Ess' room, who unwittingly just tasked himself with having to both provide a washcloth to Ess, and snap Zed out of his logic loop.

...

Ai was about to start work in his workshop, working on all sorts of gadgets. Turns out he hadn't made much progress as that went on, so he figured it'd be better to start later, rather than never... a statement that does ring true, and did ring just as true as it does usually; but was met with complications thanks to the meddling of You Know Who and You Know Who Else.

Just how convoluted was this process going to be? Well, besides having to be on guard constantly for any wayward present bows, right off the bat, going to grab his tools, Ai grabbed... a squeaky hammer. In fact, a quick glance all but confirmed that, yep, all the tools were shuffled, replaced, or some were just straight-up missing. Easily the worst one that Ai was more than glad to learn from observation and not from action was the thermal paste; or rather, the TOOTHpaste--that would've just about sent the Tetra on an emergency crash-landing!

At any rate, Ai grabbed some fine-tuning tools to hook up a generator to a converter, make sure all the parts and power inflow was aligned properly so he could turn a generator into a proper power source, and... Squeak. His wire pusher and wire cutters, both replaced by squeaky toys. "Now--how did they even get a squeaky toy version of THOSE?!" Ai mumbled to himself, slowly putting those aside for safe keeping.

Looking for the actual wiring tools, So opted to look in a drawer in his desk--if everything was scrambled and replaced, surely it'd be a matter of guessing and finding them, right? The drawer he opened contained something that Ai couldn't tell what it was... Until picking it up, and seeing it was an albino fruit spider! Ai jumped, a bit terrified since he touched it... But it became apparent it was a toy soon after. "I gotta stop falling for that...!", said Ai, shakily.

Well, if that drawer didn't work, what about the one above it? Opening that was a drawer off defective parts he normally would set aside to repair, repurpose, or discard... But apparently it was rigged up with a mechanism not unlike a birthday card, because on opening the drawer, a loud "KABOOOM!" sound played from some unidentifiable speakers. This made Ai slam it right shut, whimpering a bit, clearly on edge at this point. "Is every drawer going to be like this?"

Opening another drawer, what appeared to be some toy slime began to seep out of it. Yep. Every drawer was going to be like this. At least that pme was rather self-contained, so he decided to open the fourth and final drawer... and found a piece of paper, with a crude drawing of a dog that says "ayyye!" on it. It was--admittedly--very funny, and he set that aside so he could pin it to the wall, or maybe frame it.

But that just raised a question--if his tools weren't in the meticulously sorted drawers, even in their scrambled state... Where could they even be? They had to be in his workshop, that much as certain--he'd know if they took them out there, these would go from booby-trap pranks to just straight up petty booby-traps--but their whereabouts were still entirely up in the air.

Clonk, squeak! ...well, it was up in the air, until an ever convenient falling item--a squeaky screwdriver--landed right onto Ai's head like garbage Puyo. "YIP!" Ai cowered, before looking up, and... Lo and behold, when they were up in the air, they really WERE up in the air; everything securely taped to the ceiling, meticulously set to never fall... Except, of course, the squeaky toy ones, which were left loose deliberately. "...How did they even get the stuff to do this?" Ai was incredibly baffled, getting up to grab a stepstool to get his tools down from the ceiling. A bit of meticulous back-and-forth moving later, Ai finally had his tools, so it'd be time to work...

And the power generator and converter had been moved off of his desk! "What the...?" Ai was suitably spooked at this point, not sure what to make of this situation anymore. "Was that Jay and Elle doing that... When could they have even entered the room...?" Ai whimpered on instinct, and with good cause on that one.

Looking around twice, just to be certain, it seemed the coast was clear of Jay and Elle. Of course, seemingly wasn't good enough to work, so Ai quickly got up and looked around the place--besides, he had some parts which suddenly went missing. A doorway audibly creaked open, making Ai perk up and divert his attention. "Who is it?" He whimpered a bit, hearing distant footsteps. There was DEFINITELY someone nearby. They drew closer, Ai cowered a bit to his chair, and...

A report card hoisted onto a fishing rod was dangled from the ceiling from someone he couldn't quite see. "Hey, here's your up grade!" Ai was very, VERY confused by this. "...Where did you even get that report card and fishing rod? ...And did you, really just do this all for the sake of this pun?" After a brief bit of silence, the voice revealed itself, and it simply said, in unison with one another, "Nope!!"

And in an instant, Jay and Elle immediately revealed themselves in yet another ambush! Jay put on a giant, very tacky looking top hat on his head, and Elle slapped some red cotton balls attached to velcro onto his shirt, making him look all-too-much like Frosty the Snowman. "Happy Birthday!!"

Ai immediately went yipping, going bonkers. "YIP YIP YIP! IT'S ALSO NOT MY BIRTHDAYYY!! YIP! YIP! YIPYIP!!!" And he bolted blindly out the workshop door, stumbling his way to find Zed, tripping his way on all the misaligned furniture. And the entire time, Jay and Elle were having a laugh riot, after yet another successful prank.

...

Tee and Zed were trying to help Ai, Ess stuck around Zed, and O was just absentmindedly looking around for something to do. Which left Jay and Elle all alone to themselves in the living room, completely free to scheme up something else. "Ooh, what next, what next?" Jay and Elle asked one another in unison, all alone.

"Huh, we've pranked just about everyone already, so hmm..." Elle pondered, but Jay had an answer. "What if we pranked EVERYBODY at once, with one long chain of pranks?" The two of them immediately laughed, and after that subsided, there was a look of mutual agreement, and the two immediately began to whisper to one another, coming up with perhaps the most devilish prank the Tetra had ever seen.

The core plan was as follows--get O to distract Zed by confusing O and having Zed answer it, then while O and Zed aren't looking, do something to fool Zed into calling for Ai, who gets tripped up and needs Ess to rush in for him, who falls victim to a prank and need Tee to help, and after all that, Tee would have to come rushing in, and there'd be a final prank that trips up Tee. This was, of course, a gigantic undertaking, but they had a plan to cause that chain of events.

First thing's first--the question to ask O. What would be something O doesn't know, but Zed does, that O could ask Zed about? Something related to medicine? Something about Ess? Elle blurted out, "Maybe we could literally have O ask about things he doesn't know, but Zed does!", and Jay laughed. "Are you nuts, Elle?" And yet, the more that answer was contemplated, the more actually reasonable that idea seemed to become. "We may as well try," said Jay, "You go approach him, I'll go set up and get what we need for what we'll pull on Zed!"

Elle approached O. "Oh, O!! I have a question!" O perked up, quite curious what it is. "Pi?" Elle tried not to laugh--barely containing composure--as she asked, "What is something Zed knows that you don't?" O readied to answer, but then he paused. Clearly, he did NOT know what that was. That was generally entailed by the question. "Pipi, pipipi?" And Elle nodded. "Yeah, you can go ask him!" And O immediately went on his way, none the wiser he just painted himself as a giant distraction to allow Jay and Elle to pull the end-all-be-all of pranks.

With Zed thoroughly distracted, it was time to rig up the prank itself. Firstly, they needed to create an illusion of there being some sort of danger without the Tetra actually being IN danger--they're pranksters, not monsters! Scouring around for materials, Jay found some cherry jam from the pantry, some red transparent film overlay presumably salvaged from something, a plastic bowl, a marker, a rather powerful magnet, and all sorts of random snack mix. All in addition to all the other prank stuff they have, such as string, glue, buckets, all sorts of gag-trinkets, and all the tools needed to rig them all up.

Sneaking into the control room, dancing around all the pre-existing traps from early in the morning which hadn't been triggered yet (what with having no reason to enter the room yet) and making her way to the control panel. It was currently toggled to "simple control", presumably exactly to prevent a wayward Jay and Elle from sending the Tetra into a giant Tokyo-Drift style spin. They weren't planning on doing that; just abruptly changing to a different preset to the confusion of everyone. "Let's see... Currently set to Circular Orbit, there's Figure-8, Solar system tour, Spiral... Ooh! This squiggly one!" And with the press of the button, the Tetra began to slowly shift course.

This was entirely tame, it wouldn't be available in the "simple control" mode if it would cause disaster otherwise! But of course, the idea was to make people think it WAS some sort of disaster, or at least something worth dealing with; that's where all that red film came into play. Jay overlayed a sheet of it onto the control panel's display, and sure enough, it looked like it was tinted red, just like if it was in danger mode! Besides that, though, they had to set up something else; with the cherry jam, Jay spread a bit of it onto the (currently disabled due to being on simple control) keyboard, which was definitely pointless and not leading into a very petty, very ridiculous pun.

All the while this was going on, Elle was rigging up various traps to get everyone rushing forward; hiding a magnet under a rug, writing a name on the plastic bowl and putting the snack mix into it, putting it right in the path of from the living room to the control room, creating a small water puddle in the control room floor with a bucket, and shifting one last piece of furniture in the control room ever so slightly, but in a way that would matter all the lot. In such short notice, Jay and Elle had managed to set up the trappings for all the other crewmates, and it'd just be a matter of luring them all in. Hiding in a compartment within the control room, Jay and Elle began the execution of their master prank, and sounded one of the default alerts on the Tetra's intercom.

"Alert: Routing abnormality from projected path has been detected."

Everyone sprung up into action, recognizing what was going on. Ai, who was still trying to get his bearings while cuddled up to Zed, hopped up and immediately went on-guard. Ess went to Zed's side. Tee was very, very confused, and O was just being a cinnamon roll, smiling cluelessly. Ess blurted out a "What the heck is happening?!" Zed immediately readied to hurry out. "I'll go for this, I'll call if I need help!"

Zed went barreling for the control room, practically hovering at times to reach it... However, he stepped on the rug, and due to the magnet, he was as good as stuck. The magnet wasn't damaging--it was just a standard, non-electric magnet, but it was still powerful enough to keep him stuck without any help. "...Wayward magnet collision, requiring backup! Screen readings red, alert urgent!"

Ai rushed on next. "I'll go for it!" Bolting on for it, his dog side really showed as he went right for it, getting just past where Zed was before he felt a sickening "crunch" on his foot... Looking down, he saw he had stepped in--of all things--a dog bowl with "Ai" hastily written on it in sharpie, and apparently there was actual food in it as well; while it was dubious what it was, it certainly wasn't any good now.

Tee sighed. "Ess, you go first! I'll follow shortly after!" Ess got a bit flustered. "Me first?" Tee shook a bit. "You're the navigational expert! Surely you could fix it!" Ess got a bit nervous. "Oh, true. I'm on it!" Ess began to make a dash for it, and made her way into the control room. Focusing on nothing but the control panel, she flicked a hidden switch to disable the Simple Control, and began to use the terminal... Only to find all the keys were coated in cherry jam! They all stuck, not only to each other, but it made a big mess of Ess' fingers (and she just did her nails!). "Ack! Sticky keys! And not the usual kind! O! TEE!"

Tee nodded at O. "Come with me!" Tee and O straight-up darted for the control room like they had never ran before (or floated, as the case may be with O, but there was no time to think about that!), Tee being baffled at the sight of Zed and Ai completely stuck and Ess struggling to operate the terminal. While passing by, O somehow slipped onto the puddle, causing him to roll along the floor uncontrollably like a bowling ball... There were questions as to how that even worked, but there was no time to learn them! Now was the time to spring right into the captain's chair, and--

Tee stubbed his toe, the chair having been ever so slightly nudged, causing him to land wonkily into the chair. "ACK! Forgive..." Just in that moment, Tee saw a loose flap on the control panel's screen, peeled it, and revealed the red tint was all a bit of film.

The entire thing had been a ruse, and the entire crew was sufficiently pranked. And everyone know exactly who the culprits were, hearing their familiar laughs from the hidden compartment, as the two nearly busted a gut laughing.

"JAY! ELLE!"

...

Tee slunk back out of his chair and wiped sweat off his brow, still shaken up. He approached the compartment and glared a bit at Jay and Elle. "C'mon, out. Listen, I don't wanna be Mr. Grumpy Pants, but I do gotta say SOMETHING about this." Jay and Elle pointed at one another. "It was THEIR idea!" Tee chuckled a bit, but shook his head. "Uhh, no it wasn't. It was both of you. Now, get on out of there." All Jay and Elle could do was pout. "Aww, really?", they said in unison. Tee nodded. "Yes."

Jay and Elle, reluctantly, exited out of the compartment and stood in front of Tee. Tee cleared his throat and sighed.

"Listen, I understand you two like pranks--it's your bread and butter. And so I can't really get mad at you for THAT, especially what with it literally being the day where pranks aren't just expected, but encouraged. But, uhh, for the sake of the entire Tetra crew, could you maybe relax ot a bit for the rest of the day? We nearly thought we had a giant issue--not just the issue of having to clean up a big mess. I care a lot about you two, but I would advise you don't go causing much else, understand?"

Jay and Elle huffed sadly. "Aww, alright..." "You're no fun!" Tee put his his hand on their shoulders. "You're not in trouble--against my better judgement, I recognize this was probably just you two getting carried away. Just don't do anything like this for the rest of the day, okay?" Jay and Elle could only nod, saying "Okay..." in defeat.

Tee nodded. "Good. Uhh, I'll clean most of this up tomorrow, but Zed, once I get you free, you can help clean the terminal keyboard. For now, though... I need a break." As he walked out of the room, Jay and Elle turned around to see Tee leave... and as he left, the door was slightly ajar and held a bucket full of water atop it. And in an instant, Jay and Elle had achieved the last laugh, as Tee managed to be splashed with cold water for a third and final time.

Jay and Elle lost it, laughing it up. Tee, admittedly, couldn't help but smile. That was commitment right there, and it was a bit impressive.

...

It was much later--just in time for bed, in fact. But Jay and Elle had one last prank in mind. "You got the marker?"whispered Elle. "Yep!" Jay said in return, as the two finally snuck in to where O was sleeping, with a perfect prank in mind...

...

It was a new day. Stardate 4-02. One where pranks were just as usual, not just a rampant event. Zed was up early, detecting and disarming every prank and trap that remained. Ai was also with him to start de-jamming all the terminal buttons--both figuratively and literally.

Tee groggily woke up, and turned to his side. "O... What's the star date?" There was no response. "...O?" O's face had been drawn on with marker, and O was none the wiser. Tee squealed in shock, jumping a bit, before sighing.

"Well, I guess the real joke's on us, huh?"


End file.
